«If women in Turkey are strong, there will be no Erdogan” – Gunel Movlud interviews Can Dündar

What unites people is their values and principles…  it doesn't matter which nation or continent you represent.

Can Dündar in interview with Gunel Movlud    

Writer, journalist and documentary filmmaker Can Dündar is one of the most popular figures in Turkish media. He has worked both in print media as well as for television channels including NTV, CNN Turk and Kanal D, and was the editor-in-chief of the country's main opposition newspaper, Cumhuriyet, until 2015. After breaking a story about the Turkish National Intelligence Agency (MIT) supplying weapons to Islamist rebels in Syria, Dündar was arrested, facing life imprisonment. After an attempt on his life in 2016, he decided to leave Turkey for Germany, where he has co-founded the online news magazine #ÖZGÜRÜZ. 

Gunel Movlud met Can Dündar at a breakfast meeting in Oslo House of Literature and interviewed him about his experiences, his plans for the future and how to continue working in Exile. On a question about how hard it was for him to leave his home country, Dündar replies: 

I did not leave Turkey. Turkey left me. Newspapers refused to publish my articles and interviews, my publishing house refused to print my books. 

Can Dündar in interview with Gunel Movlud    

The full interview If women in Turkey are strong, there will be no Erdogan can be read at Meydan TV.

Gunel Movlud and Meydan

Gunel Movlud is a journalist, poet and translator from Azerbaijan. She lived in exile in Germany and Georgia for three years before arriving in Levanger in October two years ago through the ICORN programme.

Movlud started her career as a journalist in 2004, working for the cultural publication Kino from 2004-2006. She worked for the youth newspaper Alma from 2006-2010 and went on as arts critic for the simsar.az website from 2011-2013. In 2012, she started contributing as a freelancer to Azadliq, the Azeri-language section of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, and in 2013, she joined Meydan TV as editor and writer. She has since continued to work for the independent online publication, created by Azerbaijani journalists in exile.

Meydan features investigations into human rights and corruption in Azerbaijan and is based in Germany after being forced to close its Baku offices in December 2013 after threats to its staff.